IBIS can help solve firearm cases

THE State Government-funded $3.5million Integrated Ballistics Identification System (IBIS) has achieved 350 ballistics cold hits – which could help police solve more than 900 firearm related crimes.

IBIS is an electronic database of bullets and cartridge cases collected from crime scenes or from seized firearms, which tracks guns by the unique marks that they leave when a bullet is fired.

A ‘cold hit’ occurs when a piece of evidence stored in IBIS is linked with an incident for which there were no investigative leads. These incidents include firearm possessions, drive-by shootings, woundings, attempted murders and homicides.

Minister for Police Michael Daley said the CSI-style technology is a great step forward for the NSW Police Force when it comes to investigating gun crime.

Mr Daley said the 350th hit involved a self-loading pistol which was recently discovered by Police – the test fires from which were positively linked to a serious crime in 2001.

“This is just one example of how this technology is giving NSW Police the opportunity to link weapons – and offenders – to crimes which couldn’t be solved at the time,” he said.

“With 32, 527 electronic images, more than 20,400 jobs on the system, 23,711 fired cartridges and 8816 bullets – the NSW Police Force’s IBIS database in the largest of its kind in Australia.

“In fact, IBIS has become one of the world’s largest ballistics evidence systems in one location, comparable in size to the system used by the New York Police Department.

“IBIS contains evidence relating to unsolved crime in NSW dating back to the 1970s and the test firing of all guns that have been submitted to the section since 1992.”